


Voice Like Thunder

by Rotschild



Series: Monsters and Heroes [1]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Angry smoke monster, M/M, Pretty tired soldier
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-11
Updated: 2018-01-11
Packaged: 2019-03-03 14:57:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,364
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13343619
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rotschild/pseuds/Rotschild
Summary: To get Reaper alone was the easiest part.Now its all about a long overdue conversation.





	Voice Like Thunder

**Author's Note:**

> ***  
> since this was my first try at the english language almost a year ago, I took now the time and filled it out a little more. This version now is final apart from some minor edits because of typos. 
> 
> Enjoy!! :]  
> ***
> 
>  
> 
> My first work in english and not a native speaker. I got cocky and didn't search for a beta reader, so... uh.. 
> 
> If you want to help me out in the future or check over this one, just give me a message :]

Soldier76 avoided all unnecessary movement as if he stared down a deer that he wanted desperately not to spook. A deer that could also kill him in the blink of an eye.

Actually, it was a lot more accurate to say, he was facing down an easily spooked monster. "Reyes", he said as a tense sort of greeting.

The Reaper lurked in the shadows of the street and answered with an unnerving deep growl. His eyes glowed deeply red in the dark and made him look like some kind of possessed demon - or with whatever otherworldly self image the Reaper went with these days. "Morrison", was his stiff answer and it was weird to hear his own name sound so much like both an insult and an accusation.

Jack always had tried hard not to react to Gabriels antics when he got angry. It was hard. Gabriels sulks had been famous, but Jacks way to stop thinking when he felt attacked too and there had been a time when they both acted off of each other and said so many horrible, horrible things. Now everything was different. In a way.

Jack missed the old days so much, it physically hurt sometimes.

He yearned desperately for a time when Gabriel expressed other emotions as openly as his now predominant sickening desire to kill things.

But... ultimately, if you looked at it all... it wasn't even his fault. Not really, anyway.

Back then an angry Gabriel sought attention to his miserable state in any loud and most annoying way possible.

Usually he ranted, raged and whined at Jack and searched for backup in the rows of his most trusted subordinates. It used to be pretty hilarious to watch. But today?

His sudden bursts of violence and aggression made him a horrifying opponent in the field. Especially because, unlike Jack, Gabriels brain never stopped working, even when he was provoked.

Instead, he got calm and cold while his words turned to venom and his skills got deadly precise.

Back in the day, all Jack had needed to do was to ignore him for a little while, until Gabriel got tired of sulking.

Gabriel had had lots of mostly healthy outlets for the anger and aggressions, that just came with the job description.

Today, all Jack could do was hope he could tire the Reaper out enough, before he let his wrath out on people that weren't as indestructible as him. Like the way too many civilians that had already crossed the Reapers path on their most unlucky day.

The Reaper was deadly. He was also a horrible frightening monster.

So why couldn't Jack just let go of their shared past?

He already fought countless big and small battles with him. In fact, a lot of Jacks newer scars were the Reapers doing. But the curious thing was, that the guy never truly tried. He shot Jack. Oh hell, did he shoot his guts out more than once. But he always vanished before he actually finished the job.

So Jack, somehow, could not but hope for a miracle...

God, Jack longed so damn much for a time long gone. A time when Gabriels scorn was never directed at him...

Jack let out a deep and tired sigh.

A startling loud 'tap tap' got him to twitch out of his deep musings. Gabriels arms quivered with restless energy while he clapped his hands slowly in a mocking pace.

"Sooo", he began evenly. His voice sounded rough like rusted iron, almost as if he seldomly used it these days. "You got me here. To this place. This piss stained street in Dorado. 'Alone'."

Jack tried to swallow his nervousness and, slowly, nodded. "Apparently, I did", he rasped as his mouth went dry in agitation. "You called me a coward!", screeched the haunting nightmare and spread its silver talons like a bird of prey.

Jack could feel his desire to kill him for that. To strike to action with blasting shotguns and rip Jack open because he had 'dared'. The atmosphere in that alley was almost electric and Gabriel radiated so much hate, it seemed to be his second armor against all the rest of the world.

Jack tried and failed again to not feel responsible.

"It's not much of a deed to bait you with your own pride, Reyes. It's one of the things that always worked", he spoke low and almost lost himself in memories of countless teasing words and silly bets. A time so different, it felt more likely it never happened at all.

"Because you know very well it's all I've got left for myself, isn't that right, Jackie?!", spat Gabriel back and Jacks blood run cold in angry distaste. Gabriel, at anytime, seemed to entertain the thought that Jack was taunting him with everything he said and did. That everything he said held deeper despicable meaning and anything was just another method to cut at a long dead heart.

Gabriel was so obsessed with his own hatred, he projected it everywhere. Angry and bitter Jacks thoughts drifted off to a time when Gabriels revenge plots exclusively were about singing ridiculous love songs at the top of his lungs or the most embarrassingly placed hickies. When was the last time for Gabe to call him Jackie just to piss him off? In a way that wasn't meant to taunt or hurt.

Their whole mutual history was filled to the brim with cheesy love songs, silly arguments about sports and uncountable hugs and kisses. Until it all fell creepingly slow apart. Until all and everything turned into the most horrible shit.

Now, old and bone tired, Jack would gladly sell his soul for an embarrassing song sung by Gabriel. He was sure he wouldn't ever again be mad about them...

Jack took a deep breath and made his foolhardy decision before he could think up any half arsed reason not to. The butt of his pulse rifle met the cobblestone with a low 'whump' and as it leaned secure against the wall, he stripped the thick leather gloves off of his scarred hands.

As soon as he started to move, Gabriel materialized his twin shotguns in the blink of an eye and held their barrels swiftly right to Jacks head.

And Jack?

He was simply too tired and burned out to care anymore. It hurt. Everything hurt. From the growing arthritis in his knuckles and knees to the hollow feeling of failure and depression that ate at him every time he met his nemesis on the battlefield.

Where he once looked at Gabriel and felt a love stronger than anything known to him - now it filled him with an everlasting sadness that he could never escape. He still couldn't flee the pull that the Reaper had over him. Not even for the lives of all the innocents that crossed path with this miserable ghost of a man.

Maybe Gabriel was long gone already and this horrible masked monster was only there to haunt Jack and make him bleed. A bunch of memories in a coat that Jack could never escape and that manifested themselves in a nightmare of violence, gore and misery.

"What. Are you doing?", growled the beast, clicking the 't' for emphasis like Gabriel used to do when he just wanted to be a sardonic and annoying little shit.

Jack unzipped his jacket and shrugged it off of his shoulders. "Its hot", he answered. "It's Dorado", bit the beast back. An insult to Jacks intelligence was heavily implied.

Fuck this, Jack thought bitterly. He wouldn't be the one who turned this encounter into an actual gunfight, even if it killed him. He wasnt on a mission, not on call for Winstons new Overwatch, so he had nothing to gain from it all anyway. He wouldn't be the one who gave Gabriel the hurt and pain that he seemed so much to crave these days.

The Reaper watched him sharply through the slits of his bone white barn owl mask, as Jack let his jacket fall down right beside his gun.

As soon as he got rid of his most obvious identifiers and looked more like a random no name, breathing felt just that little bit easier. Also, what he just did was an open signal for a mostly improvised truce... If the Reaper accepted. 

With his slightly crooked left thump, Jack waved over his shoulder. "Come with, will you?"

Gabriel stared, still motionless and kind of creepy. "Will I?", he finally mocked. "What is this? What is your plan? What do you 'want', Jack?!", he growled. 

'You' couldn't ever be the right answer to that kind of loaded question.

Not anymore.

So Jack didn't say it. "We need to talk", he said instead. Gabriel stared a little longer, skittish like a deer, indeed. Finally his guns dissolved in a whirl of thick blackish smoke. "Remind me, when did we get married again?!"

That made Jack bark out a bitter laugh before he could get his defenses up. "Well, we did never", he huffed with a sneer. "Since you arsehole died on me."

Gabriel, interestingly enough, didn't cut back with his sharp tongue. Instead he stared almost motionless until he decided for a grudging, "Didn't take."

Well, if that wasn't some kind of olive twig.

In utter relief Jack let out a bone deep, but still mostly voiceless, sigh that made his shoulders drop noticeably.

This time. Maybe this time they got to actually talk it through. Maybe even make things right. Even if it were just 'some' things and not the complete mess that was made out of them.

Jack would do anything to make it stop hurting.

"Gabriel, please", he murmured and eluded the Reapers unnerving stare. "Please, ...come with me."

 

* * *

* * *

 

"You useless old fart are in the know that you left your stuff behind, yes?"

Old fart...? Annoyed Jack lifted a brow. "Gabe. It's a special forces pulse rifle made for inhumanly strong super soldiers. There are only two people left alive who could even lift the thing."

Gabriel let out a sharp snort and crossed his arms in front of his chest. "Right. Let's hope someone steals that ugly Jacket."

Jack hummed lowly, his smile hidden under his visor. "Remember that you also had one of those."

The Reaper didn't move, but Jack could imagine him in hilarious clarity pulling an exasperated face. "Hateful, tacky things", he grumbled with an edge of pure venomous disgust in his voice.

Jack escaped a breathless giggle and he instantly bowed his head to escape the Reapers scrutinizing stare. But of course the guy didn't care for that.

"You were the one who wanted to talk, old man. Now deliver", the Reaper growled while his claws cut into the leather of his own coat. Agitated nanites floated around him and gave the illusion that he was somehow embraced by nightmare black flames.

Jack stopped laughing instantly. Yeah, what did he even want to say. It was the funniest thing that he wasn't even sure. He didn't even dare to hope he would get that far.

Awkwardly he cleared his throat and searched for the right words, while a dozen prepared speeches kept on circling inside his head. But he didn't even know where to start.

As he saw Gabriel move out of the corner of his vision, he was so sure he lost the guys interest already and the Reaper was about to stand up and just...leave! Jack just panicked. So he puked out the first thing that came to his mind. "What happened to your voice?"

The Reaper stopped dead - until he turned around in a lurking movement that reminded of something way too hungry and dangerous. "I'm... sorry..!?", he snarled.

Jack tried to swallow around the thick lumb that got to almost block his throat. "You are...", he started without a clue where his own anxiety would take him. Even he himself had no Idea what he was about to say next.

"You can do so many things. Form limbs, weapons - fall to pieces and together again. I always wondered why you wouldn't just... ah... simulate your own voice. It's just vocal chords after all? Aren't you able to just... 'copy' them? Like everything else...?"

Hah... well... pretty invasive for a start, but Jack guessed he could have picked a much worse conversation opener. That of course didn't mean the Reaper took it well, though.

Gabriel bristled in a wave of sudden anger. His muscles started to quiver noticeably. Cold radiated around him in thick paralyzing waves like he was some sort of frosty beacon. His talons sunk down into his own arms. They had to rip into the flesh underneath by now. But he didn't answer. 

Jack felt weighted down by this so very familiar but not less sharp feelings of loss, hopelessness and regret. Again he cleared his throat quiet awkwardly and tried to swallow the dread that coiled in his rapidly cooling guts. "What the hell did they do to you...?", he rasped and finally asked the only question that mattered anymore.

The Reaper was uncarachteristically silent. He seemed to think hard about the answer to that question - or even if he should answer it at all. As he finally decided to speak, his deep and hoarse voice sounded like ice and fire combined. "I can't even remember."

Somehow, this pretty evenly delivered answer made Jacks racing thoughts come to a rather sudden halt. Ice cold dread clawed up his spine and made his toes curl while he opened his mouth wide but choked on his own stuttering breaths.

The Reaper, who seemingly had lost himself in some of his own quiet uncomfortable memories, now looked up to notice Jacks horrified silent stare and - he just laughed. 

It hadn't anything to do with the deep and rich sound of Gabriels laughter, nor had it anything in common with the Reapers usual dangerous taunts. A bone deep shudder ran down Jacks spine, while any and all of the human self preservation instincts still left in him kicked alive. Unconsciously he tilted his body backwards out of the Reapers immediate reach, while his suddenly restless hands searched for something to hold onto. Favorably a weapon to hold and a trigger to squeeze down. Unsettled Jack clenched his jaw but stopped the mindless motions of his hands as soon he got aware of them. 

The Reaper didn't care for Jacks alarmed state or his twitching muscles. On the contrary, he seemed quite pleased with himself. Well, nobody tried harder to craft the persona of an unstoppable wrathful monster, so of course the Reaper loved to be feared. 

"There is 'no reason' for me not to remember what Talon did to me, you useless Jackass", he spat venomously right into Jacks face. "They did alright to me. Kept me alive, gave me back my gear and gave me a purpose after everything burned to the ground. No..."

Gabriel chuckled darkly and slightly tilted his head. His burning red eyes glinted under the mask and while they both were pretty much disarmed for now, Jack had the feeling that the Reaper wouldnt mind a fist fight. As if punching Jack to death with nothing but his bare hands was an almost too enticing thought to be ignored. At least the Reaper was still the most controlled man alive, regardless of that mask of unhinged unpredictability he liked to wear. It never did quite fit him, anyway. So... Jack wasn't sure if he really needed to worry so much.

"I don't remember my voice", the Reaper growled suddenly deep and almost... cautiously. He didn't remember his own-... Jacks head was flooded instantly with so much of his own boiling hot blood, he got dizzy while his head whipped around. The Reaper acknowledged his stare with a grin full of deadly sharp teeth that was even wider than his face or his mask allowed for. "Or even my face", he hissed through his fangs that glinted wet in the shine of surrounding streetlights. 

Jack almost choked on his own breath. 

His pulse picked up and started to hammer painfully against the confines of his chest as he tried tried to process horror that Gabriel called his life these days. His vision turned white. He felt utterly sick. 

Now that he got to sit down with him and finally talk about it - never did the possibility cross his mind, that something was so utterly horrifyingly wrong with the Reapers appearance in the rows of Talons foot soldiers. Of course all this wasn't like Gabriel at all. Was against everything he ever stood for. But the Reaper was so present, deadly and in everyones face that Jack never assumed it could be the Widowmaker-Incident all over again. Jack tried to swallow arround the coil of strangeling emotions, but his voice didn't get to sound any less coarse. "Is that why Ana-..."

The Reaper interrupted him with a thunderous growl. It was the noise of a monstrous beast, ready to strike. Again, Jack felt the need to duck and hide rush through his traitorous lizard brain. The sound alone made his skin crawl. 

"Recreating a face from hazy memories and burned images alone... It is not the same", the Reaper spat through a layer of almost paralising bitterness. "It never looks... right. It never feels familiar."

Jack was...appalled. 

His racing mind was suddenly so very empty, he had no idea what it exactly was he was feeling. 

Just that... 

This, somehow, explained so very much about everything. And made so much horrifying sense. It didn't make the bitter pill of Gabriels horrible transformation into the Reaper easier to swallow, but... 

It made it for Jack so much more... relatable. 

It wasn't that a face and a voice made a person. But Jack had the feeling he knew exactly how it felt to remember yourself only as some stranger you could no longer connect to. When a look into the mirror didn't help you anymore to remember who you were just some months or years ago. 

Even through Jack worked as a lone wolf, he had so many people to turn to. Ana was there, Lena and Angela. All these people who knew him and cared. They didn't all need to know who he really was to help him remember, to keep it together and to soldier on, because the fight was never over. 

Jack would and could never be the same man that got himself murdered through naive idealism, bad tactical decisions and petty politics. But thanks through all his reminders he could strive to be 'better' than that. 

 Gabriel, however, was utterly alone with the broken shards of his past. Talon wouldn't want him to remember anything that could evolve into a serious conflict of interest with their own goals.

But, contrary to Jack, Gabriel thrived in groups. He was a natural leader and a whole hearted protector. He wasn't at all like Jack, who could go months or even years without seeing a familiar face if he had to. And suddenly some pieces just clicked into place. No wonder these bastards paired him up with Ameli or Sombra all the time. Talon used Gabriels nature against him and gave him someone to protect. 

If they gave Gabriel someone to bond with... they made sure he would never leave of his own volition. Because Gabriel didn't leave his fellow comrades behind. 

"I cant remember the sound of my own voice, Morrison", snarled the Reaper and forcibly startled Jack out of his own head. Jack turned and got captured by glinting red eyes behind that hateful mask. Gabriel stared motionless, while his shoulders lifted and sunk with any of his growling breaths. 

He stared as if he wanted to say something more in accusation, but didn't. His eyes flickered fast and wild over Jacks masked face, maybe furious that he couldn't look him in the eyes. 

To Jacks suprise he suddenly lifted one of his clawed hands in a slow and unusually hesitant motion. There was no strap he needed to loosen, nor a band to pull. With a simple move of his fingers, like a magicians trick, the mask decomposed into thick blackish smoke that sunk heavily to the ground and left the flesh underneath vulnerably exposed.

Jacks racing thoughts fell silent. He wasn't sure what he expected. 

Since Gabriel got off to play the living, moving nightmare of the Reaper, Jack couldn't imagine him with the face of the person he once knew and loved the most. It just... didn't fit or made any sense to him. But to envision him as some kind of monster would give the Reaper a lot more power over Jacks inner demons and fears than he actually deserved. 

So the Reapers true face had stayed this horrifying mystery in his mind. One that Jack never truly intended to discover. 

But all he saw now was the face of a man that could have been Gabriel Reyes... but wasn't. Not really. 

The face in front of Jack was grey as death and so very dry, bits of skin flaked from it like a steady rain of ash. There were dark patches on his throat, over his eyes and his cheekbones, that looked a lot like decaying flesh. Bone white scars that reminded of a lightning strike crept up his neck and spread over the right side of his face. These scars hadn't been there before the explosion. But all the big and little scars that Jack remembered were there as well... though not quite were they should be. It was as if an artist had tried to recreate Gabriels unique rugged handsomeness and didn't get it quite right in the process. Even if Jack got a headache while he tried to spot all the more subtle differences.

The colour of the Reapers skin wasn't flattering, of course. The same for the white bone that peeked through some of the more gruesome wounds on his face. But fuck absolutely everything, like Jack was so much of a pretty boy these days. They could look like decaying old meat heads together for all he cared. Gabriel was alive and breathing. That was everything and all that mattered to him. 

Jack took a shaking breath and almost hypnotized into stillness. The Reaper stared at him like he imagined in photorealistic detail to throttle him, but Jack was to out of it to respond to the ringing danger bells in his own head. Without a conscious thought he gave in to his fascination and lifted his hand. Gabriel instantly recoiled from him like a wild ally cat. "Don't touch me!", he roared. Jacks twitched and stilled his hand immediately. Even through he yearned for it so badly, Jack also knew that the Reaper wouldn't hesitate to strike him down if he crossed that line. 

So Jack let his hand sink back into his lap, even though his fingers curled and tingled in the need for touch.

Gabriel got himself suddenly into a wild frenzy, as he sprung to his feet. Growling he marched back and forth, full of nervous energy, till he suddenly dissolved into a puddle of smoke and reformed in an instant, his face merely an inch from Jacks.

"Overwatch took 'everything' from me! My time, my energy, my fucking life - they swallowed me whole, spat me out, got me killed and mangled and this is all that's left of me!", The Reaper hissed through inhumanly sharp teeth, while a dozen bright red eyes snapped open in his shadow. Like a nightmare image, Gabriel melted away, deformed into this... monstrous thing.

"This life is all I know, all I have left and it might be nothing much, but it is 'mine' now", he roared with spread Talons, ready to strike. "And some day the ones responsible for this nightmare will pay for it. For every cursed second of it!"

While the Reaper spoke, it got frighteningly clear, that he didn't chose the way things were now. His rasping voice was filled with so much sorrow, deep seated hatred and bitterness. Jack couldn't help but want to stretch out his arms and pull him near. Hug him close and give Gabriel just for a while an illusion of protection from the things that weighted down on his shoulders. 

Jack also couldn't help the dark chuckle that escaped him at that ridiculous thought, because absolutely no one on earth would ever survive an attempt like that.

"Stop. laughing!!", the Reaper roared and buried his talons into the collar of Jacks black shirt, scratched some uncomfortable deep wounds into the vulnerable skin underneath and almost tripped Jack over backwards. "Never you 'dare' to laugh at the damage you have caused!!", the beast shrieked and quivered through its barely contained rage. "Show me your face then, damn fucking Morrison! let me see all your failings as you gloat over mine!!"

Jacks insides curled around the ice cold dread that instantly made his stomach drop, because that was just something he could not do. Of course it had been only a question of time till Gabriel demanded to see Jacks face and look him in the eyes, but Jack could only shake his head and feel like a Coward while doing so. "Sorry. Not possible, Gabe."

"Stop calling me that!", the Reaper raged with force and lifted him neatly off of his feet. Jack instantly fumbled for something to hold onto and closed his fingers around the Reapers strong wrists while he concentrated hard to ignore the urge to kick and struggle. "Are you so scared?!", hissed the Reaper right in his face. "So terrified I will scratch your pretty boy face?!" 

"Gabriel...", Jack muttered darkly, while he searched for ground to stand on with the tips of his dangeling boots. "There isn't much left that you could scratch out of me anyway. Not even my eyes. So stop with the bullshit."

Gabriel blinked in an unsettling unequal way, that reminded Jack instantly of a lizard. Something that only pretended to be human. Slowly the Reaper tilted his head and bared his teeth again. They were almost one finger long and needle sharp. Nothing like Jack had ever seen. The sight made his insides tremble in fear. "...what are you saying...?!", spoke the monster slow and lurking. 

The way the Reaper moved and watched made Jack suddenly so very uncomfortable, he desperately needed room to breathe. So he pulled and turned the Reapers left wrist in a motion that would have broken the delicate bones of any lesser man and pulled in a rapid jump out of his iron grip. Still, as soon as he was standing upright and steady on his own feet again, he kept his hands lifted high in a show of his good will, because he sure as hell didn't want to brawl. 

"What do you think?!", Jack still bit back, quite annoyed, the moment his own bodily overreactions let him breathe again. "We were both in the center of a massive explosion. I never understood your tendency to think you were the only one almost killed that day." 

The Reaper bristled noticably while uneven and ice cold breaths hissed through the rows of his inhumanly sharp teeth. "You don't know what you are talking about. Jack."

Again he spat Jacks name as if it was the crudest slure he was capable of. 

Jack wanted to be so very angry at Gabriel. Gabriel had made him and his whole existence into an embodiment of all the horrors he had to face since they parted ways. But Jack knew well enough he wasn't in any way blameless for all what had happened to the both of them. The guilt he faced for that every night was only soothed by way too many flasks of whiskey. 

But what Gabriel did... it just... wasn't fair at all...

"You had your horror doctor and I got mine... ", he murmured as he eluded the sharpness of the Reapers hostile stare. The hatred in his eyes always drained all of Jacks energy. Since the moment he knew with whom he he was actually fighting, Jack had problems to cope with that. With all of Gabriels well justified wrath. "How do you think I am still alive after all...?"

"Because you are as persistent as shit on a heel, that's why!", Gabriel snarled instantly back at him and startled a chuckle out of Jack. "Yes, but -... yes", Jack blinked as his gaze sunk down to the cobblestone beneath his boots. He wasn't sure if it was in any way a smart move to say it outright... especially since he was talking to an active Talon agent. But Jack had the feeling, Gabriel needed to know this. If Jack ever wanted to form a lasting truce with him, the Reaper needed to hear that he wasn't alone. Jack let out a shuddering sigh and closed his eyes. "I'm blind, Gabe", he muttered while his still lifted hands curled nervously into fists. "Almost completely deaf, too."

He heard that little peak of interest, as the Reaper let out an unimpressed little snort. "Sucks to be you, I guess", he taunted, but his voice got sharp as he demanded further answers instantly. "The visor?"

Jack didn't need long nights of contemplation this time as he finally decided for pure and cold honesty. Should Talon use this knowledge against him in the future, what was there to lose? Jack was old, depressed and tired, anyway. They might kill him, but that was all they could do. Today he was only one head of a waking hydra. If he died, others took his place and nothing Talon did would change that. "It connects directly to my brain. Well...what is left of it, anyway. My eyes were gone, but the nerve endings could be saved. Almost the same for my ears."

The Reaper hummed in mild interest. "And the rest of your ugly mug? Pretty boy Morrison developed a complex? 

Jack let out a sharp snort. "While I sure as hell don't want to show my 'ugly mug' around too much these days, the visor is vital to protect my lungs. Weak as a newborns, never recovered from the fire. They still react horrible to unfiltered air. Breathing without it is possible but a damn lot harder than it used to be."

Jacks shoulders sunk under a deep soundless sigh. "I guess", he murmured darkly. "I can breathe just fine sitting or standing still. Movement?... I propably die."

"Then you should probably keep very still right now."

Jack reacted only fast enough to turn his head and lift his arms in an useless attempt to shield himself as the Reapers talons broke right through all of his defences and ripped into the metal base of his visor like a vice.

Of course Jack instantly struggled to get free, but with the sickening sound of ripping connections the Reaper broke the visor and tucked it free before Jack could even attempt to retaliate. Jack could have sworn for the blink of an eye he could see sounds and hear colours. Bright sparks flew and danced through his fading vision while unholy screeching flooded his ears - the rebound of suddenly capped synthetic nerves.

As soon as the dry hot air of Dorado brushed the usually so well protected skin of his face, he inhaled in reflex. His heart instantly started to compensate for the rapidly dropping level of oxigen in his blood and almost hammered through his chest while his lungs began to hitch and spasm. His helpless hitching breaths burned down his throat like crackling fire. Heaving Jack swayed on his feet, as his legs started to shiver and yield. His mouth opened wide to, again, compensate the sudden drop of oxigen while his hands shot out to find something to hold onto, right as his legs gave out on him. Talons buried themselves into his waist and cut right into his side. They held him on his knees, while another arm reached around his shoulders and held hard enough onto him to make him bleed.

Jack was so very sure he was now done for. There was no way he could get out of this alive, blind as a bat and wheezing. Shaking he closed his eyes and hoped for small mercies. But the feared dagger between his ribs never came. The Reaper held him easily in place, but weighted him almost curious in his arms. His claws left uncomfortable marks on Jacks skin, but it didn't even seem intentional. 

Eventually Jacks racing pulse and wheezing breaths slowed down to a speed more fitting for a human being. But his heart still skipped a noticable beat as the Reapers head suddenly tilted down. Jack wasn't sure what had caused it. Maybe he had been talking and now noticed that Jack didn't hear him. The ice cold skin of Reapers face against his made Jack shudder again in instinctive fear. The Reaper seemed to like that very much. There was a chuckle he couldn't hear but feel as it moved the Reapers whole body. As his wide deadly grin pressed against Jacks right ear he was finally near enough to be heared above the raging tinitus that filled Jacks ears at all times like sirens of war. 

"So, you actually 'were' honest this time", chuckled that deep, rasping voice that made Jacks heart race and his breath stutter for completely different reasons. "Of course I was...!", he croaked back at him, but stumbled over his own tongue, not used anymore to almost not being able to hear himself speak.

"'Of course' you were, boy scout", taunted Gabriel before he fell silent again. Jack could feel the clenching of his jaw. The Reapers whole frame twitched as he pulled him harder against himself. The power behind his hold was strong enough to crack rips of ordinary people. 

"You are still such a pretty boy, I fucking hate you", the Reaper hissed venomously right into Jacks ear and turned all of his insides into a coiling mess of heat and longing. Jack couldn't help the shiver that shook his whole frame and made him close his useless eyes in so much mortification.

"Gabe. Half my face melted off", he rasped stiffly in answer, but Gabriel only chuckled that hoarse laugh that made Jacks skin break out in goosebumps. "They are just some scars, Jonathan. Weren't you the one to call them a soldiers beautymarks?"

Jonathan.

Jack bit his tongue till he tasted blood, because 'of course' Gabriel would start to spout stupid shit like this, the moment Jack could no longer see his face.

"Actually", he bit out as he got able again to unclench his jaw. "I called them tyro tatts. You were always such a romantic."

Gabriel didn't hide his amusement at all and actually 'skoffed'. "Oh, please. I loved it as you got me that beer can with that crooked candle on top for my birthday." 

His sudden casualness made Jack splutter in annoyance. "We were in an active warzone! I fucking tried!"

Gabriels arms circled even tighter around him, maybe in reaction to Jacks breaths that got shorter the more agitated he got. But Jack could also feel his laugh, even through he could not hear it over the noisiness of his brain.

Jack felt Gabriel move, felt his hold on him... and he just couldn't any longer.

He just... couldn't do this anymore.

"I love you", he murmured, way too silent to be heard by himself through the howling tinitus in his ears. But Gabriel must have heard it. His laughter stopped abruptly and his body went eerily still. Jack wanted to cry. With a heavy exhale he let his head tilt over and touched it down on Gabriels shoulder. Gabriel said something. Just a garbled, angry-sounding mess in Jacks almost useless ears. But his arms turned his hold into an almost vice-like grip around Jacks tired frame, anyway.

He didn't let go and Jack was so very thankful for this tiny moment of peace. He couldn't help the hitch in his breath as he lifted his own arms and closed them desperately around Gabriels neck in an attempt to lock him into place, just for a little while. 

The Reapers voice quivered with barely contained rage as he pressed his snarling maw right to Jacks left ear again. "I hate you so fucking much right now...!" 

Suddenly the Reaper pulled him upright, fast and efficient as if he was handling a puppet. Before Jack could even catch his breath to do or say anything, his whole existence turned itself inside out. 

The sudden pain was horrendous, like the explosion had been. Like back then, it felt as if he got ripped into thouthands and thousands of the tiniest pieces. It didn't help that he couldn't see or hear what was happening to him. But then the pain suddenly vanished in the blink of an eye and he felt weirdly light as a feather, free of everything, even free of himself - like he wasn't quite himself anymore. It was disorienting and frightening like nothing he ever experienced. 

Until suddenly he 'was' again and his body slammed into place and existence right against a stone cold wall behind him. He had no idea how this worked, but suddenly he understood that the Reaper had just 'moved' them. 

Panicked and shivery like a new-born colt, Jack leaned into the wall behind him, but still held onto the Reaper like he was his last lifeline. "Don't do that fucking ever again, you darn arsehole...! ", he rasped huskily. The Reaper didn't say anything for a while. There they stood now, chest to chest. Jack didn't dare to hope Gabriel did it because he missed him, but... It was a nice, soothing thought at least. 

Too many horrifying teeth suddenly scraped against Jacks exposed throat and made him almost jump out of his skin. Swallowing he closed his eyes and fought against the natural shivers of fear that made him stop dead like a deer in the headlights. The Reapers voice against his ear was deep and the calmest it had ever been. "Ziegler did this?"

Jack hummed in answer because he didn't trust himself enough to speak right now. He tried not to cry like a useless fool. It was just that... He couldn't remember the last time they touched without the intent to hurt or kill. Gabriel was so near, Jack felt his breath ghost over his skin, together with the cold his body seemed to naturally radiate these days.

Jacks shoulders lifted through rapidly drawn breaths in an attempt to stomp down the way too many whirling emotions in his guts, that made all of this just so much more complicated. 

"There... there wasn't much left of m- my guts or my face", he rasped and stuttered through an hazy explanation. "A lot of... uh... wires and tubes. A- and... you rude arsehole killed some parts of my brain."

Actually, he was referring to the destroyed visor, but as Gabriels naked fingers suddenly caressed the scars on his face in feather light touches, it could also have been something more significant. Jack swallowed as his mouth suddenly felt bone dry. "Please...don't do that."

But of course Gabriel didn't listen. His trigger finger followed Jacks brow, then over that hateful slash over his nose and the patches of marred skin, remnants of the heat of an hellfire. He murmured something Jack couldn't understand till again his ice cold lips brushed right against Jacks ear. "They are just some scars, you useless dumbass. God, were you always so va-..."

Gabriel startled to a sudden halt. Just a blink later a blunt fingernail tipped against the glass of Jacks right prosthethic eye. It made him jump. "Stop that, you moron!", he spat in annoyance. Gabriels fingers now pressed down onto his skin, felt for the bones, the metal and wires that held it all together.

"My god... ", He murmured in open awe. "What is left of your head!?"

Jack wrinkled his nose and didn't quite know how to answer that. To think about what actually was left of him, made him always quite uncomfortable and yearn for a new bottle to drain. "A brain in a jar?", he murmured unsure, attempted as a half-hearted joke. Which fell flat, because there was way too much truth to it. "You seem a lot like Genji", Gabriel said astonished. "Just way more ... fleshy."

Jack laughed but the bitterness he felt made it turn cold and hollow. "Hello there, supersoldier", he muttered darkly. "What worked one time could been build upon. For all I know I 'am' like Genji. The stuff they pumped into us made my flesh just a lot more... resistant. There was mostly no need for complete prostethics and fake skin. Just a lot of reconstruction to turn me back into something resembling a human being." 

He let out a snort and lifted his own hand to touch over the bridge if his nose. "Never quite right and never familiar, huh?", he muttered darkly.

Gabriel didn't say anything for a while, but whatever he would do or say next, Jack was insistent in his mind to make this very moment his own. He wanted to burn absolutely everything to his memory, from the feeling of Gabriels cold fingers on his skin, to the weirdly clean smell of his coat. If he concentrated hard enough he was sure that under the fingers of his right hand he could feel a heartbeat that wasn't his own.

"I miss you, like the sight of sunlight and stars", he murmured and just didn't care if he sounded like a sappy lunatic. Romance wasn't something that came naturally to him. It always had been quite awkward. So, he guessed he just held on to tradition. Tired and in so much need for touch and contact, Jack let his head again sink down on Gabriels shoulder, while he closed his arms loosely around his waist. 

This time Gabriel lowered his head as well and nestled his nose right into Jacks through stress and sorrow already whitened hair. His voice rumbled like thunder in his broad chest, so deep, that Jack could feel it in his bones.

"They told me you were alive", he murmured into Jacks ear and provoked a new quivering shiver. But his words made Jack blink out of his trance-like state pretty fast, because that just couldn't be right. Surprised he lifted his head. "How-... No one knew it was me they got out of there but Angela and she-..."

"Talon knows everything, Jack."

Jack knew he shouldn't be suprised. Talons job was to know and manipulate everything after all. But till now he had thought... To expose him had to be the easiest task at hand for them if they already knew the truth about Soldier76 and his ties to Overwatch. But since, to this day, they didn't do it, he assumed-...

Another fault of his. All he could do now was murmur a silent and tired, "Oh..." 

Gabriel stilled dangerously. "Oh...?!"

Jack felt himself get lifted off his feet as just a fraction of a second later his shoulders and head slammed against the solid wall behind him. The force of it knocked all air out of his burning lungs. Demonic claws cut through the sleeves of his shirt, accompanied by a wall of indistinguishable spanish swearing.

"I TOLD YOU!", Gabriel roared right into his face and again slammed him back till Jacks teeth seemed to rattle loose in his head. "I fucking TOLD YOU, you useless dumbass! over and over, I told you we had insiders. I warned you, I begged you! I tried so hard to find the roots of it and to this day, never you listened to me!"

Jack took deep open mouthed breaths while he tried to concentrate on Gabriels voice and ignore that constant ringing in his ears. With just this bit of distance between then, it was a lot harder to make out what Gabriel was yelling about, but Jack, thank god, knew it was just a lot of repeat of years old arguments. "Your way of 'finding the roots' had been abduction and waterboarding. What did you think would happen?! The ethics commission-...!"

A heavy impact in the wall just beside his ear made Jack twitch and shut his mouth with a click of his bared teeth, because he still didn't want to indulge Gabriels itch for a fight, no matter how much Gabriel wanted to punch Jacks lights out right now. "FUCK THOSE ETHICS. Ethics didn't save lives?! I did! We needed quick results!"

"Did you get them?!", Jack bit back venomously and fast like a snake. Gabriel growled. "That's beside the-..."

"No, it never was!", Jacks balled fists shook with the effort of not lashing out like he desperately wanted to right now. "It were just petty politics that got us in the end and you 'never' understood that", he seethed through his teeth, too out of his mind with years old anger to hold onto his self-control. Uselessly he screamed his throat hoarse and stumbled over his own words in the process, because this argument just couldn't be won by any of them. 

"Overwatch was an Organisation that grew too fast, way too big to be controlled by just one person! The position of Strike Commander became just representation in front of UN shenanigans and constructing regulations while there wasn't any possibility to control anymore what was happening all around the world as hundreds of people gave the clearance for unauthorized missions and falsified reports that couldn't be checked because it were Too. Fuck. Ton. Many!!"

he wanted to scream some more, he wanted to cry, he wanted so much for Gabriel to understand that he 'tried'. 

Jack felt lightheaded from screaming and almost all he could hear now was his own heartbeat pounding in his ringing ears. He couldn't even make out if Gabriel argued. Right now he just wanted to scream in his face and hoped him to actually understand this time. "Overwatch wasn't taken down by three bad guys and a bag of money, it was a system that set us up to fail! Soon there was no way anymore to proof who could be trusted, who had conflicting motivations, whos opinion was bought-..." 

"YOU COULD HAVE TRUSTED 'ME'!"

"I ALWAYS 'DID', YOU GODAWFUL 'MORON'!!" 

Jack got too weak, too fast. Their shouting matches once were famous and could have lasted for hours. Now Jack was already tired out with a hammering heart, painful burning lungs and rasping breaths that sure as shit sounded as if he was about to die. He just couldn't anymore. Way too emotional for this, he closed his eyes and tried to cut off the useless angry tears that burned on his skin and tasted so much like humiliation on his tongue. Heavily he laid his hands down on Gabriels shoulders right as his own hitched in an even more humiliating hiccup. "Overwatch was too big to be controlled, the number of people we could trust was short and not even 'you' could have saved It."

That was what Jack liked to think. It helped him to sleep at night that he did his absolute best. That even Gabriel, while he surely would have done things a lot differently, ultimately would have failed the task, because it had been rigged against them from the start. 

But the truth was, Jack wasn't sure about it at all. The question if Overwatch could still be around if they had picked Gabriel... It haunted his nightmares. Gasping he hung his head and clenched his teeth while he rubbed roughly over his face to dry these damn tears out. 

Gabriels ice cold breath by his ear made him jump.

"Its so unfair that you can't even hear me yelling abuse at your sorry arse", he growled in deep seated anger and made Jack shudder in the process. Exhausted he lifted his hands again to Gabriels shoulders, closed his eyes and just... pushed against him. Into him. He was so tired of fighting.

"I never wanted for us to fall out like that. I-... I know I wasn't good enough." 

Exhausted Jack let his forehead rest against Gabriels and pulled him even closer. Created just this tiny space, a little universe, just for the both of them. "Maybe someone else, maybe you, would have done better, but... I always did my best. I did everything I could, Gabe..."

And how fast it all happened.

Overwatch needed years to be build up into this all overshadowing monster. It fell in less than three weeks.

Gabriel crowded him in. His arms sneaked around his back until the grip of his talons at his waist became again quite painful.

"They showed me the footage of you as they smuggled you out of that damn hospital", he grumbled through his teeth. "There... wasn't anything wrong with you. Just some new scars in your hateful perfect face, while I lost everything..."

Jack swallowed thickly.

"I know you never believed me, but for what it's worth, Gabe. I am so very sorry."

The grip of his fingers tightened in the black leather of Gabriels coat. "It wasn't that I didn't 'want' to search for you in the wreckage. I just couldn't. For all I know, I was clinically dead...just -... please, Gabe...!"

His fingertips slowly traced up Gabriels jawline. Jack was so horrified of hurting him or doing any kind of harm. His skin was so cold and dry. The texture under his fingertips varied between thin and delicate paper and an oily kind of ash. There was nothing human to him but his rough broad form. It produced a weird and frightening cognitive dissonance in Jacks brain, because Gabriel was right here in his arms, but also was the Reaper. That inhuman predator that could kill Jack in the blink of an eye if he should choose to. 

In the end it was a decision to not be scared. To not let the Reaper scare him off of the only thing that mattered anymore. Jack 'had' to decide. So he decided to trust Gabriel. And love him like he always did.

"I... I grieved and mourned you for years and I never could-... All I wanted was to say I was sorry. I am so sorry." 

Jack couldn't help but huddle close and for his life couldn't let go of Gabriel. "It wasn't Angela who told me you were gone, but... I didn't question it, because it just made sense to me. I am a supersoldier, too... And I died, so why shouldn't you have...?" Jack exhaled a shaky breath as Gabriel leaned, even though a little hesitant at first, into the touch of his hand. "I didn't dare to hope for a miraculous resurrection. I never thought us to be particularly lucky."

Gabriel crowded him in and nestled his head right into Jacks exposed throat. A deep chuckle shook his frame, while his wide grin pushed his teeth right against Jacks pulse point. The sudden rush of adrenalin Thad flooded his brain, made Jacks knees buckle almost instantly. Gabriel chuckled, so very pleased and held Jack upright with practised ease. "There was 'almost' nothing left of me", he growled.

His deep rumbling voice, that Jack could feel just under his right hand as he spread it over Gabriels chest, was very distracting indeed.

"Talon wanted for me to see, so they gave me the reports. While you were knocked through a wall and away, I was so very close to the fires, the heat 'melted' me", Gabriel winced. "What was left of me you could scrap right of the floor, crispy and well done."

Jack exhaled deeply as he again lifted his arms to loop them tightly around Gabriels neck and pulled him into a hug that was worthy of its name. Gabriel stepped into him a little more until they were pressed together from thigh to chest.

"I don't want to fight anymore", muttered Jack with sagging shoulders. "I am so tired, Gabe..."

Gabriel let out an equally exhausted sounding huff. "You got old", he murmured into Jacks left ear.

Jack couldn't help the snort. "I guess so. My knees hurt like shit while getting up in the morning and I can accurately predict the weather forecast.Yeah, just laugh, you darn arsehole...! ", he muttered without any heat as Gabriel broke out in deep chuckles that moved his whole body. Jack desperately held onto him and still tried to ignore these damn goosebumps Gabriels voice gave him all over.

"Hey", he finally rasped. "You made any retirement plans...? Ilios... It's quite nice this time of the year..."

It was a shot in the dark. He didn't know what he expected Gabriel to answer to that kind of open invitation. Especially since they just wanted to kill one another just some hour ago. But he had to say, he was a tiny bit annoyed, as Gabriel just shook in silent laughter. 

"Have to pass on that one for now, sorry Jacky. Some people still have a mission to run."

Jack just couldn't hold in the bone tired sigh, because of fucking course Gabriel was bound by his work, whatever that even meaned these days. "Just-... Please don't tell me you plan on harrassing Winstons guys till the end of your days..."

But Gabriel, like he always did, surprised him absolute speechless.

"Talon", he purred right into Jacks ear with so much joy and anticipation while he sounded so very, very proud.

Jack blinked and couldn't even comprehend. "You-... You mean-..."

"I am 'inside', Jackie", he hummed and preened. "I know 'where' they are, 'how' they operate and have 'all' the right contacts. I am their pretty boy the same way you were the UNs. With the difference, that I actually have the intent to rip them apart from the inside."

Jacks astonishment must have shown pretty much openly on his face. Gabriel groaned.

"Jackie", he murmured like he was talking to some quite disappointingly dim-witted child. "Just because I absolutely hate your guts right now, it still never stopped me from doing my actual job. What was my job again, Jackie?"

Jack felt his entire world tilt on its axis. "Inside operative", he breathed, still processing.

Gabriels wide and horrible grin was so present Jack could hear it in his voice. "Quite right, I am", he purred and rumbled like the highly dangerous predator that he was. Jack could only stare blindly into his face. Just stood there lost in thought. With a deep groan he finally let his head sink to Gabriels chest.

"Why does this come as such a surprise", he murmured in defeat. "You always did the most horrible shit for all the right reasons. Some things don't even change with out of control genetic experimentation"

At that, Gabriel laughed. Openly and so very relaxed. It was like hearing a heart-warming memory from long ago. Only so much better. Because Gabriel was here now and he was still alive. Jacks fingers curled into the Reapers coat on their own account. Heat flooded his lungs and made him shudder as Jack understood that what he was feeling right now, was 'hope'. For the first time in eight years, Jack didn't dread the upcoming day. Because Gabriel... even through all his theatrics and his monstrous, very much inhuman form... He was still in there. He was still alive.

"Oh, Jonathan", Gabriel growled as he framed Jacks face in his talons to wipe away the falling tears, so gentle and caring, all Jack could do was to lean into the touch. Clawed thumps caressed his scars while ice cold breath ghosted over his face.

His kiss made Jacks insides tremble, his knees almost gave in, but Gabriel held him upright, loving, like he was something to be treasured.

"Some things never should."

**Author's Note:**

> [Buy Me a Coffee](https://ko-fi.com/G2G088M9)


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